Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News
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CD Details
Artist: Modest MouseEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-04-06
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Horn Intro
- The World At Large
- Float On
- Ocean Breathes Salty
- Dig Your Grave
- Bury Me With It
- Dance Hall
- Bukowski
- This Devil's Workday
- The View
- Satin In A Coffin
- Interlude (Milo)
- Blame It On The Tetons
- Black Cadillacs
- One Chance
- The Good Times Are Killing Me
Music reviews of Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Music Review: for a more helpful review, please stay tuned
Rating: 4 Stars
So you're a published reviewer. You get paid to tell other people what to think. Think your job is difficult? Try a self-degrading, monotonous service sector job where a permanent corporate smile is the only saving grace from termination. Love bad news? Here's some good news-- Pretty soon, we'll all be in the service sector, until robots drive us into complete helplessness. Good thing the freedom of speech is still legal. It's just too bad that some people who get paid to tell other people what to think about music are simply not up to the task. Case in point: Aidin Vaziri's review of Modest Mouse's new album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Now, I'm not expecting density and expertise from an Amazon blurb; rather, my expectations are pretty low, especially when the reviewer is attempting to define an inventive, difficult-to-pin-down band to the average music buyer. However, I might as well have placed my expectations in the gutter, down the toilet, to the center of the earth, especially when you take a look at the first sentence.
[It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Modest Mouse started sounding like a real band.]
Before you go around spitting out that kind of language like you're some kind of expert, define "real band." How exactly does a band go about sounding like a "real band"? Maybe a few examples of bands that are, according to you, "real," would help guide this argument, but as it stands, I'm losing sleep over the exact moment this realness occurred, and I've been a big Modest Mouse fan for about six years. I'm hoping that this review will tell me something I don't know. Maybe a "real band" can be defined as one that actually makes money for its record company? If that's the case, at least be honest about it and don't hide behind your own phony pretension.
[For the longest time, singer-songwriter Isaac Brock seemed to exist solely to defy the established rules, forging forward on sheer momentum and ingenuity.]
Defying established rules, forging forward, momentum, ingenuity...nice description, most likely lifted from either another review of this album or plucked from The Idiot's Guide to Getting Away with Describing Music You've Never Actually Heard. Either way, if Isaac Brock were asked in an interview whether he exists solely to defy established rules, he would probably answer affirmative, and maybe, if we're lucky, even go as far as to pinpoint the exact moment Modest Mouse started sounding like a real band. It would be nice to get some sleep again.
[Even Pavement looked relatively ordinary in comparison to the band's early releases like 1996's This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About and 1997's The Lonesome Crowded West. ]
Modest Mouse is weird, wacky, like the kid at the empty lunchroom table...you know, the one who is rejected even by the nerd table. The one who seemingly relates to no one, not even outcasts like Pavement. News flash: people do relate to this kid. He may be full of mysteries and confusion, but he reminds some of us of our own quests for self-acceptance. It's oftentimes a hard road, but we are always there, usually driving the wrong way, towards a dead end, listening to Modest Mouse's This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About.
[But on Good News For People Who Love Bad News, the front man sounds like he's finally touching the earth, and the band--minus founding member and drummer Jeremiah Green--follows suit. A relaxed mood prevails, not so much in volume but in attitude.]
Here we go. Where Modest Mouse used to defy rules and live in outer space, now the band adheres to a relaxed mood. Perhaps there's some kind of quest for indie rock acceptance going on, some "selling out," making bank, leashing a mega-hit single into alternative radio land? So on this album, arguably, Modest Mouse tame their wild musical and lyrical tendencies for the greater good? Is that what you're saying? Listen to Track 9, "The Devil's Workday." Or "Satin in a Coffin." Please tell me that these songs have a relaxed mood, don't break any rules, and are performed by your definition of a real band.
[On the follow-up to the group's 2000 major label debut, The Moon & Antarctica, big sloppy melodies battle it out with brass on punky epics like "Float On" and "The Ocean Breathes Salty."]
Big, sloppy melodies vs. brass. Hmmmm. First, no sign of brass on "Float On" and "Ocean Breathes Salty." Not even a single tuba note. Second, even at the virgin listen, you can't classify those two songs as "punky epics" in comparison to the real Modest Mouse punky epics like "A Different City" and "Doin' the Cockroach."
[The lyrics are simpler, the arrangements tamer, but the vitality remains. The prevailing mood is that Modest Mouse has pulled off something extraordinary here: a well-rounded, lovable record that doesn't sound anything like David Gray.]
He really gets me here, in this last, triumphant sentence, which condemns and banishes Modest Mouse (which, in case you haven't noticed, is my favorite crazy, intellectual, musically genius band that can be simultaneously frustrating, gratifying, and surprising) to the complacency of widespread acceptance...because "well-rounded" and "loveable" cannot be extraordinary if you're talking about the average music fan/consumer. These adjectives apply to the cool, popular kid in school, but not the misfit on the outskirts. Modest Mouse may be having a coming out party as a viable product on the modern rock market, and although that may bother fans like me, I secretly know that no matter how many millions of times "Float On" surfaces on the radio waves, newfound publicity and overblown hype won't prevent this innovative band from constantly exploring new lyrical and musical territories. But thanks to Aidin Vaziri, I can sleep at night knowing that at least they don't sound anything like David Gray.
Description of Good News for People Who Love Bad News
All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Modest Mouse started sounding like a real band. For the longest time, singer-songwriter Isaac Brock seemed to exist solely to defy the established rules, forging forward on sheer momentum and ingenuity. Even Pavement looked relatively ordinary in comparison to the band's early releases like 1996's This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and 1997's The Lonesome Crowded West. But on Good News for People Who Love Bad News, the frontman sounds like he's finally touching the earth, and the band--minus founding member and drummer Jeremiah Green--follows suit. A relaxed mood prevails, not so much in volume but in attitude. On the follow-up to the group's 2000 major label debut, The Moon & Antarctica, big sloppy melodies battle it out with brass on punky epics like "Float On" and "The Ocean Breathes Salty." The lyrics are simpler, the arrangements tamer, but the vitality remains. The prevailing mood is that Modest Mouse has pulled off something extraordinary here: a well-rounded, lovable record that doesn't sound anything like David Gray. --Aidin Vaziri
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